Where to go, and when · with the homework done
MADEIRA · MARCH · IPMA NORMALS 1991-2020 Madeira gets sold as the island without a winter, and March is the month where that reputation meets a thermometer. At the Funchal station the average high is 69.1°F and the average low 57.7°F, with 2.45 inches of rain falling across 5.8 wet days. Sea level stays shirtsleeve … Read more
MADEIRA · JANUARY · IPMA STATION 522 Funchal averages a high of 68.0°F in January, a low of 57.7°F, and a sea surface of 68.6°F. Nothing in those figures asks for a winter coat. What the month does ask for is a rain shell and a reservation, because 2.64 inches of precipitation fall across it … Read more
MADEIRA · FEBRUARY · 32.6° N Madeira sells itself as the island with no winter, and February is where that claim gets measured. The official thermometer in Funchal calls the month at 67.8°F by day and 57.0°F at night: a shirt-and-fleece month, not a swimsuit month, with the sea sitting at 67.2°F for anyone brave … Read more
THE AZORES · PORTUGAL · THE ISLAND GUIDE São Miguel does its introductions in green. Pasture walls climb from the sea to a crater rim, the rim drops away, and at the bottom sits a lake the color of bottle glass. The largest island of the archipelago is built on that vertical logic: cattle up … Read more
PORTO · DECEMBER · 41.15° N December is the month Porto stops performing for visitors and simply runs. Granite goes dark with rain, the tiled façades gain a shine they never have in August, and the tram to Foz carries more commuters than cameras. The city is still fully open. It just closes earlier, and … Read more
PORTO · NOVEMBER · 41.2° N November hands Porto 6.53 inches of rain across 13 wet days, afternoons that top out near 62°F, and a sun already gone by 5:16 p.m. on the 15th. The city does not close for any of it. It changes its hours, and that is the part worth planning around. … Read more
